1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to the field of video conferencing and, more particularly, to apparatus and a method for providing a simulated video conferencing environment including live video conferees in variable conference contexts and controlling the conference during events such as 1) conferee removal, 2) temporary conferee departures or additions, and 3) changes in conferee requirements.
2. Description of the Related Arts
There has developed a need in the telecommunications art to provide simulated/live and real time video conferencing so that conferees may a) select a virtual conference context, b) communicate among themselves within the selected context, and c) share multimedia resources and tasks dynamically during a "virtual" meeting. By "conference context," it is meant a user's selection of a default or personal conference location, type (setting), purpose and other conference environmental factors of a virtual conference setting. As represented by Shibata et al., U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,365,265 and 5,604,738, in the video conferencing arts, a "chairperson" is typically designated to control the virtual meeting room and participation of conferees. Thus the context is typically selected and controlled by the chairperson. There is no flexibility in the choice of context by the conferees since the chairperson selects the context.
Also, as certain events occur, for example, conferees join, temporarily withdraw or permanently leave a conference, there is needed a way of signaling the characteristics of a particular conferee and what their individual needs and capabilities are. Otherwise, the conferee would have no ability to signal their personal conference preferences, and the resources needed by the conferee to partake in the conference may not be made available. The conference would not be as efficient if all conferee requirements pass through a chairperson for approval.
One proposal for providing a multimedia video conference is a services creation and execution environment called MR, for Meeting Room. MR is supported by "Archways" a distributed computer program that manages conferee, computer and network-based resources to support multimedia communication sessions among users, especially, within the context of long-term collaborations. Consequently, MR is especially useful within local area networks or private data networks but has not yet been extended to Internet, intranet and public switched telecommunications network applications.
Three dimensional graphics are used to provide conferees with simulated conference table settings. Three dimensional sound systems enable conferees to hear, for example, conferees virtually seated to their right through the right stereo channel signal and virtually seated to their left through the left stereo channel signal. Full body photographs of each conferee are image processed to provide graphically enhanced taking heads and bodies. By "graphically enhanced," it is meant the graphically drawn or painted and animated image portions such as the moving mouth.
United States Patents and articles describing MR, Archways and languages and interfaces for use in these and similar systems include: U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,471,318 and 5,689,553; Ahuja et al., "Archways: Making Remote Multimedia Conversations Persistent and Natural," Proceedings of Technology Summit Telecom '95, Oct. 2-7, 1995; Seligman, "Interactive Intent-Based Illustrations: A Visual Language for 3D Worlds," Ph.D. Thesis, Dept. of Computer Science, Columbia University, 1993 and Seligmann et al., "Providing Assurances in a Multimedia Interactive Environment," Proceedings of ACM SIGCHI '95 Human Factors in Computing Systems, Denver, Colo., May 7-11, 1995. The status of the use of 3D graphics enhancement of multimedia communication is also described by "Automatically Generated 3D Virtual Environments for Multimedia Communication," Fifth International Conference in Central Europe on Computer Graphical and visualization '97, Plzen, Czech Republic, Feb. 10-14, 1997.
In their '553 patent, Ahuja et al. describe calling party control of a conference including the naming of a room and conferee control of the saving of predetermined portions of a meeting. Meetings may be terminated and restarted, and user files may be stored. Also, a network blackboard feature may be provided which is a virtual space for conferees to make certain data, video or other entries that can be observed by the other conferees. The network blackboard is selectable from a menu of options provided a conferee on conference initiation. But there appears to exist no individual party control of the conference room, nor may an individual party signal their needs for additional resources or for changes to the conference context during a conference. Also, there is little disclosure of how the virtual meeting room functions in response to certain events such as the addition or removal of a conferee.
Other recently issued patents describing video conferencing apparatus and methods include U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,003,532; 5,323,445; 5,335,011; 5,347,306; 5,453,780; 5,491,743; 5,638,114 and 5,675,374.
Use of simulated talking heads derived from photographs is not as desirable as providing real-time, live images of the conferee. These can be provided by a camera associated with a personal computer and overlaid on a computer graphics generated background, such as a conference room setting. Also, it is known from U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,185,667; 5,384,588 and their progeny to capture a 180 degree image with a fish eye lens. The captured image may be a view of a conference room such as a jury room, conference room, office setting or other view. A user may pan, tilt, rotate and zoom within a 180 degree image of a conference including such a 180 degree view in real time from their input device.